The Demise of Tom Riddle
by HermanTumbleweed
Summary: Complete One Shot AU DH spoilers. Just one way Riddle might have been gotten rid of a bit earlier than in the series. Takes place near end of DH. Somewhat super powered Harry. Rated for language.


The Demise of Tom Riddle

by

Herman Tumbleweed

**Disclaimer:** This is a work of fanfiction and is in no way meant to infringe on the copyrights of the various owners of Harry Potter franchises. It was produced without remuneration or the intent to receive any. I wrote this solely for my own amusement. Although a kind word from a fan or two never hurts…

**A/N:** If you wish to blame someone for this bit of weirdness, I refer you to my fellow HP fanfic author Crys. I was reading his 1001 Ways to Kill Voldemort and this plot bunny popped into my head fully grown. Had to get it out somehow, so enjoy. (Crys's work can be found at fanficauthors(dot)net.)

Somewhere in Britain:

Voldemort was incensed, as he often was. The Potter brat had evaded him for far too long; he and that mudblood tart of his. He'd finally had enough of his incompetent minions always being one step behind the little twerp and took to tracking down the pair himself. He had his faithful Nagini with him, and the one and only follower he knew he could trust implicitly. He held the man's life, literally, in the palm of his hand. They had a bond, accidental though it might be, that if the stronger wizard died, so did the other. The Dark Lord knew, beyond doubt, he was the most powerful magic user on earth. what with the old Muggle loving fool now long gone. Unfortunately for him he had a tendency toward self-delusion, as most megalomaniacs do.

One of many things he did not know, as most wizards and witches were ignorant of, was that in the Muggle world many games of logic and myriad logic puzzles had been invented over the years. Hermione Granger was a young woman who loved a puzzle, as did her best friend Harry Potter. When the two of them had little else to do, while hiding out in their magical tent, they would dig out the Muggle books she had on the subject and work on the many, many puzzles contained within.

It was during one of those games that the two of them suddenly twigged on a way to fulfil the prophecy which should reduce the risk to innocent bystanders. They'd finish gathering the Horcruxes, yes, but not destroy them; a considerably more fitting idea for those had come to mind as well.

Two and a half months after the initial idea besieged them, they concluded a real estate deal, and, shortly after, contracted with a Muggle builder who would begin the work they asked for as soon as possible. Happy with progress, the pair Apparated back to their tent, near Brighton for the moment, to wait and continue to hunt down the darkest of dark items.

Unbeknownst to anyone else in the Wizarding World, including the deceased headmaster, may he not rest… ever, the two had logically deduced that Harry had to have a piece of Snake Lips in his head which was the reason for the mental connection between the two. Over many long nights of discussion they also figured out how the tired old man had so sorely manipulated Harry's life.

Also unbeknownst to either said deceased Supreme Mugwump and one Tom Riddle, aka the self-named Lord Flight-from-Death, was that Harry was a lot smarter than either _esteemed_ leader had any idea of. When she finally realized it, a couple of months into their self-preserving isolation, Hermione had laughed over how he had hidden so much in plain sight. It was there if one looked closely. That he had managed to hide that he was considerably more intelligent than either of the so-called greatest wizards of the age – one light, one dark – was a true measure of that intelligence.

Something which amazed them both was their recent discovery that he was also more powerful magically than either of the two aforementioned reprobates. It made their plan even more exciting, that Harry was way different than anyone but them knew. In point of fact, though, the plan would not likely have worked nearly as well if he had not been more powerful.

Riddle would never know the truth, let alone what hit him, at least not until it was too late. The idea a mere boy could not only outthink him, but could casually murder him as well was totally incomprehensible to the Dark Lord's over-inflated ego. He was about to find out what a mistake it was to underestimate any enemy.

A little over a fortnight later, the contractor reported he had completed the portion of the project most important to their plans and he told them all could be in readiness with a day's notice. Harry asked the man to have everything in place in two days, and the men came to an agreement on the time. Harry had paid extremely well, and the man was not one to ask questions of the very rich; they might just have other work for him in future. Besides which he was a squib who knew exactly who Harry was, and wasn't about to question what the youngster was up to.

At 12:10 pm on 5th May, 1998, Tom Marvolo Riddle's bound servant reported on bended knee that he had reliably located the missing young wizard and his Mudblood consort. He asked that the Master allow him to side along Apparate them to where they could apprehend the pair. He also stated they should leave in about ten minutes, or they could miss the pair of thorns in the Dark Lord's side.

Voldemort smiled cruelly at his servant. "You have done well, and shall be rewarded after I have put that sorry little bastard out of my misery." Then he gave out with the required Dark Lord evil laugh.

Following the advice of his bonded minion, Lord Voldemort allowed the man to Apparate them, only to find himself standing on a scaffolding. As the minion Apparated away he discovered he was at the edge of some concrete forms on a Muggle construction project. The snake face man tottered on the not quite steady platform, looking down for a moment to catch his balance. Below him the ground had been excavated several feet deep, and a wooden boxlike structure rose out of that. Being somewhat paranoid, as any good Dark Lord must, his highly developed observational ability noted there were a large number of metal rods crisscrossing the interior of the wooden container with a roughly man sized hole down the centre.

Looking up as soon as he was balanced, Lord Voldemort saw Potter and the mudblood standing across the Muggle contraption looking not at all surprised to see him arrive. His bound minion was standing just off to the side of the two. It seemed odd that the man looked quite placid, as though he was under some sort of enchantment, perhaps the Imperius.

"So, Potter, you have come to meet your end, have you," Voldemort crowed. "I can think of better places for a wizard of your undeserved repute to do so, but this should do quite nicely." Suddenly Potter's wand came up and the Dark Lord found himself bound in ropes. He yelled at Potter, "Do you think such childish Auror tricks can defeat the greatest Wizard of all time?" In truth, he found that for some reason he was unable to immediately break the bindings around him, even though he still held his wand, and started to grow slightly worried.

Potter smiled casually back at him, saying, "Tom, I think you have that a little backwards. I have come here today to witness your death at my hand. You do know that is what the rest of the prophecy said don't you? In essence that one of us must die at the hand of the other, because neither could survive while the other lived, or some such rot. I don't truly believe in prophecies, frankly, but in this case I decided it might be best to play along so as not to tempt fate. Fate being the fickle bitch she is, I didn't want to risk providing her too much enticement."

Voldemort sneered, "And just what do you and the Mudblood whore plan to do, bore me to death with silly tricks and long-winded rhetoric?"

"Oh no, Tommy," the mudblood dared to answer him, "we have much more final plans for the end of this meeting than that."

Then Potter had the audacity to sneer right back at him, as he said, "This is your final resting place, Tom." He turned then to the soon-to-be-dead minion, and asked, politely, "Mr Borgin, would you be so kind as to retrieve our other guest?"

Borgin nodded, and disapparated. Meanwhile, Voldemort tried once more to magically dispel the bonds around him and thought he felt them loosen slightly. He was astounded he could not make them disappear. He also tried to Disapparate and found he could not. Now he was considerably worried. This should not be possible.

Apparently seeing him struggling with his bonds, Potter smiled again and turned to the tart beside him. "Care to enlighten the gentleman, my dear?"

She smiled back at the brat, then turned her face to the now seething Dark Lord. "Mr Voldemort, or may I call you Tommy again. Oh, don't bother to answer." He noticed Potter aim his wand at him again and he was suddenly unable to speak. The Mudblood continued in her horrid know-it-all manner, "Well, no matter; anyway, as my dear friend here is too modest to tell you, we recently discovered his magic to be considerably more powerful than either yours or the sadly deceased headmaster." To Voldemort, she didn't look at all sad.

"As a matter of fact," she went on, "it would seem that, as far as we can tell, Harry here is in fact the most powerful wizard or witch ever. He is, as near as we can tell, even more powerful than Merlin himself. One other interesting little fact we recently discovered is that if a witch or wizard is more powerful than another, by a considerable amount, the lesser of the two will find it nearly impossible to break the stronger one's spells or enchantments. I assume this is something you are well acquainted with in your… er, line of work. In other words, Tommy, you can **not** get out of your current predicament."

Seemingly to prove the point, Potter murmered, "Accio wand," while again aiming his wand at the bound lord. Quite amazingly, to the further enraged dark wizard, his wand wormed its way out of his hand, through the bindings, and flew to Potter's outstretched hand. The blasted whelp then had the audacity to grin maliciously at him. "You see, Tom, I am more magically powerful than you. I should not have been able to take away your wand with that spell if I was not. Interesting thing, wouldn't you say?"

Voldemort, who had studied magic all his life, had to concede that it was interesting, and that he did know this; but he also knew it was infuriating him. He wondered momentarily if he could in some way bring the boy under his wing. He doubted it though, the old Muggle-loving fool had made sure the brat was loyal to him years ago. He decided that it didn't matter what was done to him this day, it might be a setback, but only a temporary one.

At that moment Borgin reappeared, clutching Nagini, who seemed to have been stunned. Potter put the end of his wand to the scar on his forehead, his face a mask of deep concentration, then he withdrew what at first appeared to be a strand of memory for a pensieve. Only after it was dangling from the whelp's wand did Tom notice the strand was Stygian black, seeming to suck in the light around it, rather than the silver of a normal memory strand. It was quite long, as well, and seemed to writhe as it dangled from the wand.

The insufferable boy draped the strand over Nagini's head and muttered a short incantation. It was absorbed instantly into the snake.

"You know what that was, don't you Tom. That was the Horcrux you inadvertently put into me the night you tried to kill me as a baby. Rather a strange feeling now, isn't it. After these past three years of being in each other's heads, being free of that bond is quite refreshing, don't you think? I quite like it myself; never did especially care for seeing your sick mind at work."

Voldemort was about as furious as he'd ever been. He mouthed words he wished the insufferable, horrid little bastard could hear. He'd never been so humiliated, even when he'd lost his body that dreadful night some sixteen years before. If he could he would tear the lousy little twerp apart bodily with his bare hands; the Mudblood as well, for that matter.

The disgusting brat spoke again, "Well, Tom, much as I have enjoyed our little chat here, I'm afraid Hermione and I have other plans for the afternoon. We'll need to go and clean your snake shit out of the Ministry in due time, I suppose, but first we must make sure the vermin you installed at Hogwarts are permanently ejected. So, we shan't keep you from meeting your maker, or whatever. Hmm, come to think on it," he looked thoughtful, "I'm not sure you will, since not all of your Horcruxes are actually destroyed. We thought maybe you might like to keep them close to you instead."

Finding he had his voice back, the Dark Lord growled, "It matters not what you do to me today Potter. In the end I shall have your head on a pike, dine on your liver, and feed the rest of you and your whore to Nagini."

"Tut, tut, now Tommy," the bitch dared again to speak, "you might want to moderate your manner of speech in your final moments. One never knows whom we might be meeting soon. If you believe in prayer, you might perchance take a moment now to do so, to whatever deity you believe in."

"What are you on about, you sorry little bitch, my people will be here in a few moments and take care of you two fools."

The brat replied, "About that, Tom. I'm afraid you are mistaken. You see, only the four of us, not counting the snake meat here, know of this. Mr Borgin, it seems, failed to tell anyone but you of this."

Sending a death glare at Borgin, Voldemort told him, "You will die a most horrid death for this Borgin. I will see to it myself, I assure you."

Borgin answered, in a bored tone, "I have grown weary of your posturing and constantly berating those around you. You are the most insufferable boor it has ever been my misfortune to know. Even as a young man, you were entirely too stuck on yourself to be worth much to me in my business. I know you stole from me many times by not bringing things back as you were instructed. No matter now, I suppose; water under the bridge and all that. So long, Tom, it was not at all nice knowing you."

With that Borgin levitated Nagini over and draped the huge serpent around him. Potter then seemed to take over and wound Nagini around his body, and he then felt the ropes vanish. However, with the snake now encasing him just as tightly, he still could not move.

"You will pay for all this indignity, Potter," he ground out, "and pay dearly indeed, of that you may be sure."

"Oh, I'm not worried Tom. One day, perhaps I shall have to atone to some being or other for the sin of killing you, but it will not be by your hand I fear. Time to say goodbye to all you could have been, Tom."

Harry could almost feel sorry for the creature as he levitated him and his pet over the forms and lowered them inside. A bit over half way down, the bundle came to rest on a small platform which had been placed there for just this purpose. He looked down on the pasty, bald, scaly head and asked, "Any last words Tom?"

"Rot in Hell, you piss-ant."

"As you wish Tom. Hermione?"

The young witch picked up a large device attached to a cable which had numerous large buttons on it. She pushed one and held it. There was the noise of a large electric motor starting up and a large bucket like device moved over the hole.

When the large apparatus was directly above Voldie, Harry asked, "Sure you don't want to say anything Tom? In case you hadn't notice, you will get to spend eternity with all of your remaining Horcruxes. What we are using here, is called hardened concrete. Add in the reinforcing steel and you have a structure which will stand up to anything, even earthquakes. Should last several thousand years, I'm told. Who knows, maybe some poor sucker will find one of your sorry soul pieces and bring you back. By then, of course, I'm sure Muggle technology will look like magic to you, a kind of magic you don't understand and never will. Bye Tom."

"Wait!" the Dark Lord shouted. "Maybe we can make a deal, Potter. I let you live, and whoever you want as well, and we can call a truce between us. There is really no need for either of us to die. Together we could rule the world, my young friend."

Harry looked at Hermione and both of them rolled their eyes. He nodded and she spoke down to the upraised serpent like face, "Sorry Tom, no deals. The prophecy says one of you has to die."

Voldemort could see the cup, the locket and the diadem all hanging from the steel rods around him, and knew there was at least some truth in what they said. However, he was not about to concede defeat to this spineless wimp; not ever. "My followers will find this and free my Horcruxes to bring me back again, Potter. You can't win."

"Sorry," the brat called down the hole, "you see this type of concrete is absolutely impervious to almost anything except lots and lots of time. But then, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you Tom. Muggle technology has passed you by and you never even noticed; too bad, really. What I mean, Tom, is that magic could not even dent this stuff. You'd be amazed at how dense it is, probably even denser than the Crabbes and the Goyles. Pretty amazing stuff, this is. Anyway, no amount of magic, even by me could free you or your Horcruxes. That's assuming, of course, anyone should actually figure out _you_ are in here, let alone the Horcruxes."

As he stared up, he could see the traitor standing there, seemingly without a care in the world. "So, Potter, learned how to cast the Imperius have you?" He smirked at the brat.

Potter looked puzzled for a moment, then glanced at Borgin. "No way, Tom, I didn't have to use anything on Mr Borgin. I won't ever make that mistake again. I had nightmares about casting that Cruciatus for months. Nope, Mr Borgin and I ran into each other quite by chance a few months ago, and he begged me to help free him from you. So, here we are, Tommy boy… about to make you a permanent monument to Muggle Technology. You really should have learned more about the Muggle world you spurned all those years ago. So, any more last words Tom?" The bitch handed the large box, with the cable attached, to the little prick.

"Fuck you, you sorry-ass little shit…"

Deciding Tom wasn't going to have any meaningful last words, Harry looked down at the controls and pushed another of the large buttons. The resulting flood of concrete cut off the Dark Lords words as it inundated him and began filling the large cavity. When the form was full, Harry closed the hopper bottom. Then, he and his companions simply Apparated away.

Harry, Hermione and Borgin reappeared at the gates of Hogwarts and walked up to the castle. Harry said to the man, "It would appear that I was successful in breaking that bond you had with ol' snake lips, sir."

"Aye, my young friend, that it would. I can never thank you and Miss Granger enough for helping me. I only wish we could have disposed of that vermin much, much sooner."

"Amen to that," chorused the two youths.

When the contractor's personnel returned from being taken out to lunch a bit later, they found someone had been mucking with the equipment. Nothing seemed to be harmed though, so they used the big vibrators to ensure the concrete was settled, added the little more that was needed, cleaned up the equipment, and called it an early day. The boss had not only taken them to lunch, but said the gentleman who had let the contract was paying for it and for them to have a short day at full pay. They tipped a pint to their unknown benefactor when they got to the pub later that afternoon.

That night in Hogwarts Castle, the party was the stuff legends are made of. Never before had the Castle seen such a celebration, and Harry, Hermione and Mr Borgin were the toasts of the night. By the next day they were the toasts of the entire Wizarding World, but none of them ever revealed how Voldie had died, only saying that his body was unrecoverable.

A few days later, when the crew returned to remove the forms from the concrete pillar they had built for the odd gentleman, a young couple was standing off a ways watching. They paid no attention to the kids, who seemed interested but didn't say anything. After a while the two were no longer there, though no one recalled seeing them leave.

When the crew was gone at the end of the day, Harry and Hermione Apparated back to the site. It still had a lot of work to be done, but the park they were building where Muggle kids could play and older folk could sit and talk or play checkers or chess would be a very nice place indeed. The land had not been easy to acquire, but with a large amount of money, one can do most anything they wish. The two had decided to name it Peace Park, in honour of the peace which was brought back to the Wizarding World with the demise of Tom Riddle.

Years later, the Muggles who used that lovely park would forever be amazed at the large obelisk in the centre of it which had some strange rune like carvings in the sides. Around the bottom were the words, "This park dedicated to the people of Little Hangleton on the site of the former Riddle Mansion". But, by then, no one recalled there having been a Riddle mansion or the dastardly things which occurred there so long ago.

End or Beginning?

**A/N:** Thanks to my beta's Tommy and Mike, Tommy, aka Tumshie 1960 is a great writer on his own.


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